Mr. Ian Talbot:

The Deputy has some really interesting lines of thought on this. There is a large overlap in members in that plenty of the Deputy's constituency companies are members of both IBEC and Galway Chamber, which do a great job in Galway.

The independent agency idea raises the question of what all the agencies in existence are doing. Enterprise Ireland, for example, has a limited number of companies that it considers. They have to be high-potential start-ups. There is a sense that there is an intention to grow the remit of the local enterprise offices, bringing the figure from up to ten to up to 40 or 50, but I believe that was always the intention. Based on Putting People First, from 2014, it was always the intention and we are only getting around to it. If the structure is kept reasonably simple and straightforward, companies will find ways to use it very quickly. Both my organisation and IBEC have people on the ground who can do exactly what the Deputy is proposing, which is to point people towards things. The simpler they are, the more effective people will be in using them.

Take our experience with Covid, for example. The wage subsidy schemes were pretty straightforward. All the schemes, including the pandemic unemployment payment scheme, were kept straightforward and large numbers of people were able to draw down the payments very quickly. There has been good follow-up by the Revenue Commissioners to make sure claims were valid and so on. If schemes are kept simple, people very quickly adapt and apply.

A point well made in the commission's report concerned the simplification of the tax code. It was 1997 when we had the last consolidation of the tax code. We have had over 20 Finance Acts since then. Therefore, the code has become enormously complicated again. It would make it easier for everyone, including the Revenue Commissioners, I am sure, if we could get it back to square one again, with a single Act covering things. Some such ideas in the report are very good.

To go back to the core question of who is out there to help companies, there are many people out there to help them but this help needs to be reasonably straightforward to achieve the objective. The more complicated it is made, the more difficult it will be for companies. Companies do not have time and they will more likely invest the time they do have in something that is more likely to pay off.

Another conundrum raised concerned the projections for the potential for employment. Until the layoffs in the technology sector started a few months ago, we were almost at full employment. I think we probably effectively still are. Research and development promises to improve the quality of employment as much as bringing new people into the workforce. It is about people getting better jobs and doing better things.